SPN and the underclass

[laespada]

Part 1

Disclaimer: this is pretty much my reading of Supernatural and one of the biggest themes if keep seeing. This will be very subjective, depending on your life exprience, class status, ethnicity, culture, etc, so on and so forth. You may think "Like hell," after you read this. That's fine, you've got your own reading, and I'm not about to

Comments

[kalliel]

This sounds like an excellent start to a meta piece; I'd love to see the rest when you finish working on it. You mentioned being concerned about how it might be received--while there's no doubt in my mind you'll find many in fandom who are in wide agreement, I'm far more certain that there will be people who are interested in what you have to say, and perhaps may not have thought about Show through that lens. Which is really just the long way of saying, yes please, I await the next part eagerly!

Also, since your journal seems new (at least to SPN fandom), welcome!!!!

[laespada]

Thanks so much!

I'm glad to hear that everyone is so receptive, especially through a somewhat unusual lens. I'm glad this is helping people think.

[missyjack]

I would love to hear more from you! If you haven't read it you may be interested as well on this excellent piece by amonitrate. The limited portrayal of the working class on American TV interests me alot, esp as its such a contrast to UK TV.
Supernatural and Friday Night Lights are two of the rare shows I think that have focussed on this class, outside of sitcoms (where their is usually a lot of negative stereotypes and not much postive) or as the criminals on police procedurals.

I particularly look forward to reading more along the lines of how being in the underclass is dangerous in ways that aren't always about monsters. Some intersting ideas there!

[kalliel]

It was totally going to link amonitrate's piece! Didn't have the link handy, though. /bookmarks!

[laespada]

Awesome! I'm glad to see that this is being more well received than I feared.

Actually, your prompt had me write a whole other section of my article just to answer that. Thank you! I'm glad you guys are getting me to think deeper.

[fannishliss]

I think it's really important to distinguish between the working class -- that is, the lower middle class, unionized, stable class that seemingly used to exist in the US -- and today's working poor, the underclass, who have no job security, no way to buy a house, etc. So please continue!! I want to hear more.

[laespada]

Yeah, that way of the lower middle class is way less prevalent now. Those same jobs kind of slipped into the underclass

[fannishliss]

Just by way of biography, I'm a West Virginia native -- my dad was a farmer and my mom was a schoolteacher. Bobby Singer is the truest (only?) representation of my upbringing that I've ever seen on TV

[laespada]

Dude, yes. To everything. I grew up in rural New York as a farm kid of one of the smaller farms, so I know what you mean. Especially with the hunting and food growing. My father never had time to hunt because of the farming, so he let some of our neighbors hunt on the land. In return, they would give us some of their catch.

I've got a lot of what you mention scattered through the rest of my meta piece, especially the bit with Sam. Hopefully I won't sound like a jackass.

Oh, motels. In my town, we have a fine "dinner". Our motel sits next to the old town mill. My dad used to bring grain there as a kid to get it ground into flour.

[amonitrate]

I'm really glad you're writing this, it's such an integral part of my view of the show, and isn't discussed as often as some of the other elements. I didn't grow up rural, but I did grow up economically unstable, and I value SPN for how it incorporates this into the fabric of the characters' lives.

I hope you do post more.

[laespada]

Glad you liked this! And yeah, this show is really impressive with how it represents this kind of society.

[randomstasis]

This is something I'm glad to see come out so positive-Show really is rare in showing a positive aspect of the material-advantageless unprivileged portion of the population, and this offers a more objective viewpoint on one of fandom's tropes that reallyreally bothers me; that John is a Bad Parent precisely because he doesn't provide a stable middle class privileged life for his kids

[laespada]

Yes. All of this so much, especially with being allowed to do things as a kid that most adults would consider cruel. Hell, I've helped winch out and transport various dead or dying animals, along with a slew of other things, and I know that about 99% of the people I work with now would consider that fucked it. It was just something that had to be done.

My parents would be considered bad for being and doing a lot of the same shit John did, and yeah while it did suck, it was just something that had to be done.

I had a grow up a lot quicker than my peers in the upper classes, and sometimes I do really wish that I had the luxury of being a child. But I never did, and at 23, I've seen and done things that most people will never have seen or done, and that's helped me a lot.

(Btw, I only use underclass mostly by lack of way of finding another better word. It's also easier to grasp for all kinds of societies, so I admit to taking the easy way out.)

[randomstasis]

Knowing that you can do what has to be done creates a strange sort of disconnect between ourselves and everybody else, doesn't it? And that's kind of fucked up, too

[laespada]

Awesome backstory is awesome. Being a part of the family business is a dying way, but it's definitely been a part of our country's experience up until we started being service based instead of agricultural or industrial based. I never really took pride in what I was doing, because I had no reason to-- I was doing everything everybody else in my community was doing. It was only after I went to college that I learned how goddamn different the rest of the world lived